Valentine's Day(s)

Now why do I start rambling about the peculiar occupation of my neighbours? Everyone: there is no need to worry! I do not live in a brothel. In fact, I live opposite the police station.
Manfred has been here last week to see with his own eyes that truly I am doing fine. As I had a tremendous writing-frenzy in the preceeding weekend, I decided to take the two days off and we explored Mainz together. It really was my first good view of the city, as so far I had not taken much time off. It is no fun on your own anyway. And I have to say, the WWII bombs have luckily not destroyed all the beauty of this city (just the part where I live,..). And sometimes, the destruction has led to very nice reconstruction as well. Our first stop was the St Stephan's Church, which was severely damaged during the war, but rebuilt in the seventies when Marc Chagall was asked to design the new windows. I personally found that the bleuness of these windows gave the church a rather unfamiliar and cold feeling, but they are definitely a sight worth seeing. The church now takes a strong interest in Jewish-Catholic reconciliation, and it was interesting to read what they had to say on the pope's decision to reinstate Williamson. Suffice it to say that they are not amused.
All our other sight-seeing was purely Roman. We visited both the Roemisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum and its dependence Museum fuer Antike Schiffahrt. They were both fun for me as well as for Manfred. I went in mostly for the social-economic history of the area and spent a good deal of time with the inscriptions while Manfred was intrigued by the weapons and boats. We also walked round the Drususstein, which was an impressive sight. I knew before that the Drususstein could not be too far away from where I usually run -actually today I have discovered that if I am not too exhausted to look at the surroundings rather than at the path I can see it- but my spatial awareness of the city has certainly improved over the last week.
For the rest we just enjoyed being together. We cooked some German specialities. Manfred made my favourite, spaetzle, for me and I gave him Semmelknoedeln with his steak, drank some good German wine and relaxed. That is, apart from one night when my ability to understand German was stretched to its limits during a staging of Goethe's Die Wahlverwandschaften. I could follow it quite well, but have to admit that large parts of the dialogue were still a little difficult.
Anyway, I am getting back to my normal routine, which presently consists of repairing all the language mistakes I made during my frenzy. There are many,...

survived first calamity

It has been a little quiet for a while. I have been getting along with my work quite nicely with almost no hiccups and as a result I have not had much to report to you. Following Pausanias, I must only report that which is interesting and pass by all the ordinary stuff. And so, for most of my readers (if any!) it would be far too boring if I went on and on about my daily life, which frankly only consists of getting up, going to the Academy, going back home, run (about 3 times a week), eat, do some more work and go to bed. Every day is basically the same, and, for now, that is just how I like it. But it doesn't give me much to talk about.
Now that I am rereading Pausanias' complete Periegesis instead of just the book 4 which is my main interest, I have come to the conclusion that he is an even more interesting historian than I thought. And a very amusing one as well. This appears, however, to be a rather unorthodox opinion, and it seems that I would need a lot more space -a whole dissertation perhaps?- to prove this point than just this blog.
So perhaps I should just follow Pausanias again and say a bit more about some of the things that seem to me particular either to the country or more specifically the city. And the theme of this week is: food. It may be the absolutely delicious chocolate I am currently nibbling on that inspires this shift: Lindt Cassis and Chili. Marvellous! I have also seen, but not tasted yet, Maracuja and Chili and Tequila Sunrise Chocolate. It is a tragedy. I will simply have to go running each day, and even then I won't be able to taste all the brilliant chocolate. Another one of my discoveries is spatzle. It looks just like ordinary spaghetti, but it is so much better. Presumably it is simultaneously equally bad for me. Last but not least: Laugenbrezeln, a kind of in between white bread and cake. I have not been able to indulge in the wines yet, but will make up for this next week when Manfred and Quibus come to visit for a couple of days.
Quibus, I should tell you, is Manfred's koala and as lovely as Willem. He got a bit jealous when he read last week's blog, so he made me promiss I'd mention him. There you go Quibus. Be sure to take some Eucalyptus with you when you come. For those of you who wonder how Willem is doing: we found him a doctor, and she has a nose for him.
Anyway, food has up until now been my sole discovery, as I am spending most of my time in the books or behind my laptop. The quietness has been wonderful for writing my introduction. I can concentrate astonishingly well, with no other jobs or tasks around to worry about. Today, however, almost saw abrupt end to my focus. I was just putting my salmon in the oven when all of the electricity in my room shut down. I figured out, admittedly not purely by myself, that my problem translates in German as Kurzschluss. I am normally quite a practical girl who can find her way around plugs and cables(you are not obliged to actually believe this, but I believe it nonetheless), but this time round I have to admit I was a bit useless as no matter where I searched I could not find any plugs to switch. I gathered courage, assuming that my box would be at the same place as where my neigbhours had it and introduced myself to my neighbours (I had to meet several before any could help me) and explained the problem. It turned out that Lan had hidden the box behind her toiletries. It admittedly sounds quite a dull story now that I am writing it down, and partly it is a measure of the level of excitement of my life here in Mainz, but then you don't know to what extent Lan's clutter made this search into one of epic proportions.
I also found out that two of my neighbours have quite unusual occupations (as in, they had dressed for it), but I'll leave that up to your imagination.